ORTLAND, Ore. - Both presidential candidates swept into this unexpected battleground yesterday, with Vice President Al Gore reaching out for the critical votes of the middle class and Governor George W. Bush continuing to stress his platform of ''compassionate conservatism.''
Struggling over the state's seven electoral votes just one week before the election, Gore and Bush continued to surf a wave of conflicting poll numbers from around the country, none conclusive enough to determine which candidate has an edge. With the clock winding down, Bush also bid farewell to California yesterday afternoon, just hours before Gore arrived for his final visit last night.
Gore, fending off an insurgence in the Pacific Northwest by Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, took aim at the $1.3 trillion tax cut Bush has proposed, calling it ''a form of class warfare on behalf of millionaires.'' In a speech at Portland Community College, Gore warned Bush would return the nation to an era of ''big deficits, big debt, and repeat recessions.''
''Our people have worked too hard and achieved too much to waste it on the wrong kind of tax cut that puts our economy at risk,'' Gore said. ''We need targeted, affordable tax cuts for families that keep our budget balanced and keep our prosperity going.''
While the audience - which contained only one millionaire, according to an informal survey Gore conducted from the podium - interrupted him repeatedly with cheers, the vice president declared: ''It's wrong to give almost all of the surplus that all the people have built up to those who need it least.''
''What he [Bush] is actually proposing,'' Gore continued, ''is a massive redistribution of wealth from the middle class to the wealthiest few. It is in fact a form of class warfare on behalf of billionaires. That would be the result of his plan.''
Gore also defended his smaller tax cut, which Bush says targets taxpayers too narrowly. ''Yes, my tax cut is smaller,'' he said, ''but the resources are there to maintain fiscal discipline. The resources are there to strengthen families. The resources are there to invest in a stronger, more productive economy for the 21st century, and I think those are the right priorities and the right values.''
Gore flew to Los Angeles last night to appear on ''The Tonight Show with Jay Leno,'' continuing to cross paths with Bush, who appeared on the late-night comedy show the night before.
Using a stage that increasingly attracts candidates - some GOP leaders traced Bush's resurgence this fall to his appearance on the Oprah show - Gore bantered with Leno about Halloween costumes. Asked he would order for his first meal if victorious on Tuesday, Gore replied, ''If it's as close as they say it is, breakfast.''
One of Gore's senior advisers, Greg Simon, said the trip to LA was made to reach Leno's national audience rather than to shore up support in California, where recent polls show that Gore's big lead has slipped somewhat. ''If Leno were in Omaha, we'd go there,'' Simon said.
However, Gore took advantage of the visit to hold a rally last night near the UCLA campus.
Bush, meanwhile, took a detour into a more personal style of campaigning during a visit to a rehabilitation center in northern California. Reprising an early campaign theme of encouraging faith-based charities to take on greater responsibility in society, Bush met with residents at CityTeam Ministries in San Jose, including Dominador Limosinero, a recovering drug addict and alcoholic who began to cry retelling his tale to the Texas governor.
With a quiet gesture, Bush comforted Limonisero, saying to reporters, ''That's about as powerful a statement as you can get.''
''I quit drinking in 1986,'' Bush told a crowd of 100 or so inside the center. ''I have not had a drop since then. It wasn't because of a government program in my case; I heard a higher calling.
''I don't think the church ought to be the state or the state ought to be the church, but I know the state ought to welcome programs that change people lives,'' Bush said.
The event, an unusually subdued affair with none of the rousing music or confetti that have come to define Bush's events, seemed part of a careful plan by the campaign to stay on a specific message each day.
Later, during the flight to Portland, Bush was in a far more boisterous mood. When a reporter from the Austin-American Statesman teasingly told the governor he'd see him ''in January back in the Legislature,'' Bush shook with laughter.
''You wish,'' he shouted back.
